Among the many calls and letters forwarded to this office in connection with the proposed national wage and rules settlement, several comments have been made suggesting that our national negotiating team gave the Carriers everything they asked for in this round of negotiations, and secured nothing in return. While any objective person would probably recognize these statements as exaggeration, I thought it might be helpful to review some of the things that the Carriers did request in Section 6 Notices going into the negotiations. The following are excerpts from those Notices:
Revise existing pay rules and adjust pay levels to correspond to pay of comparable positions in other industries and to offset impediments to productivity.
Specify a basic day of not less than 160 miles.
Amend mileage limitations to provide that a carrier in its discretion may adjust such limitations as it deems appropriate.
Eliminate existing rules providing for car scale additives, weight on drivers, local freight, road switcher, mine run and other special rates of pay.
Eliminate all existing penalty and duplicate time payments such as arbitraries and special allowances, initial and final terminal delay, switching allowances, runarounds, etc.
Payment for deadhead on a minute basis when not combined with service and as part of the regular service trip when combined with service.
Eliminate all demarcations between road and yard work and permit a carrier to use employees to perform any work in the manner it deems appropriate.
Eliminate any starting time rules.
Eliminate any restriction on a carrier’s right to annul any assignment at any time.
Permit a carrier to institute or change interdivisional service upon such terms as it deems appropriate.
Eliminate any rule restricting a carrier’s right to create, combine or change extra boards at common terminals in any manner and provide that employees on such board(s) will protect service on any seniority district as specified by the carrier.
Eliminate existing seniority district restrictions and provide that a carrier in its discretion may use employees outside of their seniority district when deemed appropriate by the carrier.
Permit carrier to use any road crew to pick up a train stopped short of a terminal because of the Hours of Service Law, and proceed through the terminal on its trip.
Eliminate any existing rules regarding meal periods and related allowances and penalties in road and yard service.
Provide that the carrier may in its discretion realign or combine seniority districts.
Eliminate mileage or other restrictions on road switchers.
Eliminate any requirement for a conductor, flagman or brakeman on all helper and light engine road movements.
Amend existing rules or practices containing restrictions in short turnaround service.
Carrier may in its discretion extend or contract switching limits and consolidate yards.
Carrier may establish standardized calling procedures in lieu of existing rules and practices.
Eliminate any existing daily mark-up rules.
Eliminate any restriction on a carrier’s right to regulate the number of turns in a pool and provide that the carrier will regulate such matters as it deems appropriate.
No restrictions or additional compensation for the use of new technology by employees in any craft.
Expand cost sharing by employees for Health and Welfare, Dental and Vision Plans.
Mandatory managed care where available.
Establish standard compensation for on-the-job injuries.
Amend Washington Job Protection Agreement to facilitate expedited resolution of disputes.
Amend all existing protective agreements to require protected employees to accept all available work opportunities with the carrier or with other employers or forfeit protected status. All such earnings shall offset protective payments due.
Allow carrier to transfer an employee to any location to mitigate cost of protection.
Change monthly protective allowance to an annualized basis to take into account variations in an employee’s monthly earnings during the entire year.
Establish expedited procedure to provide, at carrier’s discretion, for the cost-neutral consolidation of separate schedule agreements on a carrier into a single collective bargaining agreement for that system.
Eliminate secondary picketing and provide appropriate penalties for an employee or Organization violating this provision.
When we have the necessary clarifications, this office will voice an opinion on the proposal to anyone who asks. Until that time, I would suggest that anyone who renders an opinion or “interpretation” should be asked to identify the authority on which that opinion or “interpretation” is based. If that authority is anything less than the parties who sat at the negotiating table, then such opinion or “interpretation” including my own, is mere speculation.